Behind the Attraction: Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Howdy, partners!
I’d like to talk to you about the wildest ride in the wilderness!
Photo: Disney
Let’s go Behind the Attraction to discuss Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a train ride that would have surprised Walt Disney.
Remember Rainbow Ridge?
Image: Disney
Have you ever heard about Rainbow Ridge or the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train?
If you have, you’re either dating yourself or revealing yourself as a Disney superfan.
Big Thunder Mountain
I say this because the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train hasn’t been around since 1960, and even its successor, the Mine Train through Nature’s Wonderland, disappeared in the 1970s.
Still, these two variants of the same attraction provide the backbone and origin story for what came next, the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
When Walt Disney built Disneyland, his love of trains was unmistakable.
In 1956, Disney’s love of frontier living came to the forefront with Rainbow Ridge, an Old West town contained within Frontierland.
Image: Disney
At the time, Disney billed this place as a “frontier traffic center,” which explained the presence of its oddest inhabitants: pack mules.
Guests could even ride these pack mules for a brief time before everyone realized that having mules at Disneyland created more problems than it solved.
The other entity here proved much more enticing, though. Imagineers built the Rainbow Caverns Mine Train as a way of escorting guests through the area.
Image: Disney
People could admire the meticulously themed Old West details of Rainbow Ridge.
At first, Uncle Walt liked this part of the park so much that he expanded it. In the process, the train ride turned into the Mine Train through Nature’s Wonderland.
Alas, for all its utility and attention to detail, the train didn’t impress guests much.
Image: Disney
They had visited Disney for exciting rides, but this train was sloooow.
After a while, Uncle Walt called in a heavyweight, and the rest was theme park history.
Marc Davis’ Wild, Wild West
Photo: D23
Walt Disney’s favorite animators developed a reputation as the Nine Old Men. One of them, Marc Davis, eventually transitioned to the theme park department.
Since Davis had worked on unforgettable Disney characters like Cruella de Vil, Tinkerbell, Snow White, and Bambi, he commanded respect.
Photo: Disney
Still, Davis possessed no theme park experience when he switched to Disneyland. This career change wasn’t unusual at the time, though.
Uncle Walt famously shuffled his employees into new jobs to maximize their skill. Davis quickly discovered that the train ride at Rainbow Ridge lacked whimsy. So, he gradually added comedic touches.
Photo: D23
The illustrious illustrator injected a sense of humor into the train ride, but it still needed more. Alas, that never happened because plans changed.
At Walt Disney World, Disney had intended to pull an inverse Pirates of the Caribbean.
Park officials incorrectly believed that Pirates succeeded because West Coast fans loved some folklore from a different part of the country.
Photo: Disney
For this reason, Disney intended a Wild West section of Magic Kingdom called Thunder Mesa.
One of those attractions would be Marc Davis’s signature attraction, a western-style Pirates of the Caribbean clone on the Western River.
Alas, those plans collapsed due to what Behind the Attraction discussed in the Pirates of the Caribbean episode.
Image: Disney
East Coast Disney fans demanded their own version of the ride. So, a Western version of Pirates of the Caribbean suddenly became redundant.
Davis lost his wild, wild west water ride, but he and one of his proteges came up with something better.
Yes, the presence of Pirates of the Caribbean directly led to the creation of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad thanks to…Tony Baxter and money.
Money Talks
Image: Disney
This episode recounts how Baxter talked his way onto the Imagineering team as Bob Gurr quickly recognized he couldn’t dissuade the youngster.
Baxter deduced that Imagineering was in a financial downturn. He needed to latch onto a ride to make himself less expendable.
Baxter pointed out to others how the mock-up for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad would cost only 25 percent of the Western River Ride.
Image: Disney
“I think that’s how I got the corporate-level vote.” – Baxter’s comments about corporate decision-making 50+ years ago still ring true today, don’t they?
Baxter and his team created authentic, highly detailed models of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Alas, Baxter’s project didn’t push to the forefront of Magic Kingdom post-opening attractions. Disney built Space Mountain instead.
Disney spent its money on the only artificial mountain it could afford at Magic Kingdom. So, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad seemed dead.
Well, the attraction actually did die at Walt Disney World. However, that slow train ride at Disneyland’s Frontierland had lost its oomph.
Park officials wanted something new. And that fact explains why Disney built a Walt Disney World creation at Disneyland first.
Photo: Disney Parks
Of course, the blueprints didn’t directly transfer. Instead, Baxter quickly deduced that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad would sit on an opposite plot.
His idea for a roller coaster wouldn’t work in its current form. So, he reversed the ride, altering the locations of the twists, turns, and drops.
Credit: Disney
I’ll throw in an odd historical fact here. Disneyland’s version of this attraction famously can cause people to pass kidney stones, but the one at Magic Kingdom doesn’t.
I cannot help but wonder whether that’s why it only works at one of the two parks.
A Big Thunder Mountain at Every Theme Park
Image: Disney
Disney officials definitely liked one thing about Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. It was cheap to construct.
Given recent park history, these executives learned from their mistake with Pirates of the Caribbean.
Disney went ahead and authorized the construction of Magic Kingdom’s version of Big Thunder Mountain as well.
However, you’ll discover that more is different than just the track layout.
Both attraction sets build a mystery of sorts. You’re riding a runaway mine cart through an abandoned town.
So, what caused everyone to vanish so suddenly? Well, Disney chose for each park to possess a different explanation.
Photo: Snorlax
At Disneyland, oddities like a goat carrying dynamite in its teeth raise lots of questions.
The goat, Billy, and other animals represent Baxter’s tributes to his mentor, Marc Davis, and his train attraction that got bulldozed in favor of Baxter’s.
The Wikipedia entry for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad actually devotes an entire section to all these tributes.
Image: Disney
As for the ride, this roller coaster proved so instantly popular that Tokyo Disneyland requested it for that park’s early days.
Yes, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad opened at three different Disney theme parks within a decade, starting with Disneyland in 1979 and ending in Tokyo in 1987.
Image: Disney
Disneyland Paris would also add a version in 1992. Fans went from zero to four versions of this roller coaster in 13 years!
And that brings us back to the storytelling.
The Many Stories of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
Image: Disney
When you visit Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland Paris, you’ll ride a runaway train straight out of a Western movie, which is what park officials wanted.
Conversely, Disneyland tells a story about spooky 19th-century happenings that caused gold miners to leave in a hurry.
Fitting, Disney named this town Rainbow Ridge, and the villain of the piece is a tycoon named Barnabas T. Bullion, whose portraits are eerily similar to Tony Baxter’s appearance.
That character has evolved over time. Most recently, Disney published a series of comic books based on the Big Thunder Mountain stories.
In those books, Baxter notes that he appears to be the villain. Since he says it through laughter, he doesn’t seem to mind, though.
Fittingly, Baxter paid tribute to his mentor, Davis, on Big Thunder Mountain. Later, the Imagineers who followed did the same to Baxter.
Image: Disney
On a personal note, whenever I ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, I yell, “Tony Baxter was a genius!” as I perform the biggest drop.
To me, Baxter is synonymous with the wildest ride in the wilderness.
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